The subjective quality of single cane reed used for saxophone or clarinet may be very different from a reed to another although reeds present the same shape and the same strength. In this work, we propose to compare three approaches for the characterization of reeds properties. The first approach consists in measuring the reed mechanical response by the mean of a specific bench which gives equivalent dynamic parameters (mass, damping, stiffness) of the first vibration mode and the non linear stiffness of the reed. The second approach deals with the measurement of playing parameters “in vivo”, using specific sensors put on the instrument mouthpiece. These measurements enable us to deduce specific parameters in playing condition, such as the threshold pressure or the spectral centroid. Finally, subjective tests are performed on musicians in order to deduce the independent subjective criteria which characterize the quality of reeds. Different reeds chosen for their subjective differences (rather difficult and dark, medium, rather easy and bright) are characterized by the three methods. First results show that correlations can be established between “in vivo” measurements and subjective assessments.